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Siren Says - Hardcover

Herrera, Jennifer

 
9780593714386: Siren Says
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593714385 ISBN 13: 9780593714386
Verlag: Penguin Putnam Inc, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A lush, spellbinding tale about a tenacious young woman who must harness her family’s dangerous magic to put a stop to the sacrifices they’ve been making for more than a century

Twenty-five-year-old Raven Wynn knows that the ancient plant magic running through her veins brings nothing but destruction. It doomed her Welsh ancestors. It killed her mother. It’s the reason she’s now bound by a painful curse—one that will destroy her if she can’t find a way to break its hold.

When her estranged Aunt Delilah bursts into her life promising a cure, Raven seizes the chance. However, her freedom comes at a steep price: Once her magic is fully unleashed, she is more powerful—and more dangerous—than anyone thought possible.

Desperate to tame powers she never wanted, Raven makes a pact with Delilah: In exchange for learning to control her magic, Raven will capture one of the spirits that roam Delilah’s hometown on May’s Eve so that it may grant Delilah’s secret wish. With the help of an enigmatic new friend, Cherry, as well as an infuriatingly handsome stoneworker, Idris, Raven learns that her task is even more perilous than she imagined—one false move and the spirits could trap her soul—forever.

A sumptuous escape into a world of Celtic spirits and botanical magic, Siren Says is a bewitching story of the unbreakable bonds between women, the interplay between goodness and power, and the capacity of love to mend our very souls.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jennifer Herrera is the author of The Hunter. She is a former philosophy grad student turned literary agent, who is fascinated by the stories we tell ourselves to live and the lies we cling to that sabotage our chances of a good life. She has lived in six states and five countries (so far) and now resides in Philadelphia with her husband, daughter, and cat.

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CHAPTER ONE

Magic is Nature's gift to Wynn women.
But Nature has an agenda all its own.

-The Wynns' Llyfr Cyfrin, entry by Violet Wynn

I had, of course, known that my mother was a witch, even though she'd always referred to herself as a Siren.

I'd known it from the way she ignited the fireplace with dittany powder instead of using a match. I'd known it from the way she'd forage for the exact type of pine needle to make her remedy tea-the one that never failed to cure me. I'd known it from her headaches, which could last for days or sometimes longer, when her visions took hold of her and the person inside went somewhere else. If I'd ever harbored any doubts about what my mother really was, all of those were put to rest on the day that she died.

That day, I'd woken to the sound of crows. My corner of Eighty-Sixth Street, which was normally soundscaped by honking horns and the beep beep beep of delivery vans parking, had suddenly thrummed with staccato cries, like tiny dogs barking.

When, with a pounding heart, I got out of bed and looked out my window, there they were. Dozens of glossy crows. They were scattered in the alleyway, sitting on top of trash cans, resting on windowsills, perched atop the fire escape. It was as though someone had decorated for Halloween, but during the wrong season.

It was an omen I didn't understand.

Now, thirteen years after her death, the crows had returned to my bedroom window. This time I understood what they meant.

This time, I would heed their warning. I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

If trouble was coming for me, then I was going to be prepared. Even if it meant braving a freak snowstorm to do it.


For nearly three hours, I’d been wading through the slush. A sane person would have rescheduled. But this appointment with the bonesetter was too precious to risk.

Unfortunately, because of the storm, the subway had been running on modified service. So, I'd had to take the D train to Thirty-Sixth Street in Brooklyn and walk the hundred or so blocks from there. It was a brutal trek, full of stinging winds and drifts so high that snow filled my boots. Yet, despite the bitter cold, I forced myself to focus on the beauty.

This was a thing my mother had taught me before she died-a way to survive the harshness of a reality that might steal your joy if you let it. She'd taught me that, no matter how bad things were, there was always something to appreciate.

Now, with a frigid intake of breath, I did just that.

I noticed how the streets, which were usually full of dust and grime, were covered in cool drifts of white glitter. The grungy sidewalks and chipped window ledges were powdered in snow. Even the harsh glare of headlights had softened into something golden.

Yes, it was freezing. But the cold could be lovely, if you tried hard enough.


Up ahead, I spotted a green street sign that told me Ocean Parkway was finally becoming Surf Avenue. Minutes later, the heart of Coney Island came into full view.

The Ferris wheel and the Cyclone roller coaster formed ice sculptures in the sky. The Parachute Jump, which hadn't operated since the 1960s, stood beside them, iconic in the way that all big things become iconic when they're too much of a hassle to move.

As the ocean churned, kicking up vapors so thick that the air became foggy, I passed painted brick storefronts and shop doors that were vaguely familiar to me, even with their rolled-up metal gates closed.

I'd come to Coney Island many times over the years with my stepbrother, Ash. When I was thirteen years old, I'd even left him alone at a game booth-if only for twenty minutes-while I went searching for answers on my own.

I remember feeling so hopeful, so naughty that day as I'd perched him-all of six years old-at a booth and ran off to the other side of the park, promising I'd be back before he ran out of tickets.

Of course, I didn't have enough money for what I wanted. My only job-babysitting Ash-didn't pay. Yet I still came up with something. At the psychic's table, I uncrumpled a handful of dollar bills. I begged for a favor with my meager cash.

"One card," the psychic said, biting down on her charity before I mistook it for something kind.

"One card," I repeated, the tickle of an emotion building in my throat.

She shuffled the tarot deck. Her eyes flat, she said, "What's your question?"

"How do I heal the wound my mother gave me?"

The shuffling stopped. The woman's gaze shifted. Her mask of detachment, for a moment, unstitched.

I knew how I must have looked to her. I was wearing the clothes that my stepfather, Striker, had ordered for me, which were too pastel for my skin tone and too prim for my personality. Yet my long black hair betrayed me. It curtained my face, making my eyes into pits that, under the shadows, must have looked skeletal. More than once that year, I'd caught my own reflection and thought, Who is that wretched thing?

For a long moment, the psychic held my eyes. I thought she was going to ask how my mother had hurt me. I might have even tried to tell her about my mother's magic and how, when she'd used it against me, it had ended her life-as well as mine, in all the ways that counted.

But the psychic didn't ask me anything. Instead, she merely looked away. Her rings clanged together as she shuffled the tarot cards again. Her gaze went hazy. Her forehead crinkled. Then she flipped over a single card.

It punched a hole in my chest.

Even before she told me the card's meaning, it was obvious from the open-jawed skeleton what this was.

The psychic didn't want to say it. So I did it for her.

"Death."

Her face bloomed red. Embarrassed, or perhaps just wanting to be relieved of the sudden responsibility of me, the psychic called over a friend from another booth. Soon she was drawing a tarot card, too.

The picture was different, but the meaning was the same.

Again, death.

So a third psychic was called and the same situation repeated itself until all three of them stood at wit's end but also impressed at their own convergence. They rattled off explanations about death meaning transformation and rebirth, but mostly, they were trying not to scare me.

Yet they needn't have bothered. I was a child, but still I understood the situation for what it really was. My mother, even in death, was holding steadfast to her secrets.

As the great Violet Wynn was now making abundantly clear, no amount of divination was going to pry them out of her.


The day my mother died, Striker, my stepfather, had gone to work. He was a cardiothoracic surgeon, and he had an aortic valve replacement to perform. My stepbrother, Ash, had been sent away to his grandmother’s house in order to make these last moments with me and my mother private.

Shafts of light bled onto my mom's white blanket as I curled up on the bed beside her, her thin body radiating heat. I flipped through a large leather book so I didn't have to look at her. It was my mother's Llyfr Cyfrin, her Welsh book of secrets. But it was written in a coded language that she'd never taught me to read. Now, I realized, she never would.

For days, my mother had been ingesting a cocktail of magical herbs and powders in an effort to extend her life. As far as I could tell, the only thing they were doing was making her visions worse. With her eyes squeezed tight, she'd talk about the ysbrydion-the evil spirits-and how they were coming for us. Beads of sweat collected at her temples as she said things that didn't make any sense: She's not strong enough. She's not ready....

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Verlag
Penguin Putnam Inc
Erscheinungsdatum
2026
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593714385
ISBN 13 
9780593714386
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
G.P. Putnam's Sons
https://www.penguin.com/putnam/

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